Criteria for academic collaborations with CADET

CADET is not a service facility – all projects are undertaken on a collaborative basis. In this regard, we will help with the scientific planning, design, execution and data analysis. In return, we expect that appropriate academic credit is apportioned to CADET, in terms of authorships on publications and grant applications.

A detailed experimental plan is to be provided with a hypothesis and hoped for/expected outcomes. This plan will be developed in collaboration with CADET staff, to ensure that all parties are aware of the details of the plan, hypotheses and outcomes, and to ensure that the project is feasible and has a good chance of success. We reserve the right to turn down any projects that we do not feel are scientifically justified and worth our time and financial commitment.

All work performed at CADET is costed to cover our overheads, using a costing model that has been approved by the Faculty finance team. This can include data analysis and interpretation time if required.

Depending on the number of samples/timescale of the project, we will require payment upfront in order to purchase consumables and pay staff. Alternatively payments can be evenly spread out over the duration of larger and longer-term projects.

If the outcome is to generate pilot data for a grant application, then at least one of our academics must be an Investigator on the subsequent application.

If the outcome is to produce data for publication, then at least one of our staff must be an author on the publication. We reserve the right to publish these data with ourselves as senior authors if no manuscript is written within two years of us sending you our data analyses.

Samples MUST be collected following CADET’s SOP (or collected in a similar exacting method, to be discussed with CADET BEFORE sample collection). This is essential to limit contamination and inter-sample variation to enable biologically significant information to be obtained (click here for an illustrative PCA plot of an experiment with confounding effects and more detailed information about sources of variation). Ideally, batches of consumables used for sample collection should be made available for testing (e.g. tubes, pots, cryovials, etc.)

You should have more biological replicates than you think you will need to allow for attrition during the experiment (e.g. start with n=10 if you need to finish with n=7).

Where practical, you should take replicates of each specimen (i.e. 2x 100 mg of tissue from each subject rather than 1x 100 mg). Minimum sample amounts apply for all analyses. This minimum should be exceeded, or additional samples supplied, to enable method development and optimisation, and sample QCs to be run.

Sufficient time commitment should be made on behalf of the collaborator, i.e. for PhD student projects, the student MUST be in CADET to prepare samples, and to be tutored in our data analysis pipelines so that questions can be asked during this time and not months later.

Projects will be fitted around our own core projects. Due to the nature of this work, it is NOT POSSIBLE to provide accurate timescales. However, we will endeavour to provide all data in a timely manner, as discussed during the planning phase.

For project involving clinical samples, additional information concerning patient cohorts will be required. In order to increase the chance of success, ALL available metadata should be provided with the samples to ensure the subject classes can be clearly and objectively defined, cases and controls are well matched and so that randomisation can be carried out.